Which would be fine, except the DC FRZ (flight restriction zone) is a 30-mile circle around the Capital within which it is illegal to fly ANY remote control device of any kind. Includes "drones" as well as those toy RC helicopters at the mall kiosks, and the sort of RC planes that people have been flying around for many decades. Some tourist flying a quad in DC is in for a very rude awakening, as has already happened.

Wouldn't matter. Do you understand how small the White House grounds are, and how fast even a modest quad can fly when it means business? I've got one that can do over 40mph. That would cover the distance from the sidewalk in front of the White House to the middle of the typical speech-giving area of the Rose Garden in well under 8 seconds. A drone flying waypoints - with no need for a human controller nearby or watching - could be moving that fast well before it gets to the White House fence, and be coming in 200' overhead, be above a high-profile press event in seconds, cut power and drop like a stone spewing a mist of cesium or a nice cloud of serin or laden with a nice little brick of C4, and it would be on the ground in the middle of that speech/ceremony so fast you'd have no ability to do something about it. Except maybe light it up with some sort of automated buckshot gatling gun, right in the middle of a busy urban area.

This is going to result in a lot more events being held indoors.

The more money people have, the less they tend to do for the poor.

According to your logic, the people who do the most for the poor are the poor, which is a paradox since they have little to no resources to begin with. And I'm not sure how we expect the most wealthy to give a greater percentage of their income when we're already taking a greater percentage of it through progressive taxation. But let's go to the numbers. According to the IRS's 2011 numbers, charitable giving is on a bell curve. Apparently, the most charitable are on the income extremes.

It's a shame the middle class won't band together and come after the rich, but those poor idiot fucks won't realize that they have a better chance to win the lottery than to actually work their way into the upper echelons of society

I know you mentioned the lottery in jest, but the poor actually are the ones spending a large percentage of their meager resources on state lottery tickets. Maybe government should get out of the business of suckering poor people into gambling.

It's the statist "I'm all for personal freedom, but..."

The solution to the ozone problem is a proof that we can do it.

No, it's not. The solution to the ozone layer issue was to ban a narrow range of chemicals that included CFC. We can't ban CO2 because that's like banning life processes. Misguided people want to use the government hammer to get the job done again, not thinking about the impact. Just cutting government loose will give it power over nearly the entire energy industry, on which our entire lifestyle and livelihood rests. It's de facto control of everything. A measured response is required, one that requires as little government mandate as possible.

Freon does not burn.

At all.

You can't breathe burning Freon because it doesn't burn.

But propane does, which you hand-waved away.

We were using freon because its predecessors were flammable. Freon was basically the last invention Thomas Midgley was responsible for that actually helped instead of hurting people-- until we found out it hurt the ozone layer.

If you believe all that, you have a lot of growing up to do.

Can we have a discussion on here EVER, without some partisan inundating us with irrelevant linkspam nonsense?

Considering that her claim of being docked for damage would indicate a violation of federal law-- and she's a friggin' federal government employee-- either she's a rube, or you are. The only disciplinary deductions allowed are for safety violations.

Besides, a malfunctioning switch is not "damage", it's failure from normal wear and tear. They don't last forever. If the doors don't open or the wheels on the train have to be replaced, is that taken out of their paychecks, too?

I'm not really anti-union (except for white-collar government employees), but the Amtrak union has really proved themselves to be total asshats during this issue. They opposed the automatic speed controls, because they preferred that another dues-paying engineer be in the cab. I'm sure that doubling the engineer payroll won't have any impact on the budget at all. Now they oppose the cameras, saying they won't improve safety because they only increase accountability, and mumble mumble. Yeah, and cameras in banks and stores don't keep employees from stealing, either. Accountability is what keeps people from failing at their job. Barring a medical emergency, a camera will cover every scenario of human failure. Obviously, the speed controls are what we need and if the GOVERNMENT WHO MANDATED THEM made sure the GOVERNMENT AGENCY INSTALLED THEM we wouldn't be talking about this.

That's not how Mad Libs looked when I was a kid. We usually came up with something like:

The system has been shut down while BUTTS investigate and FART, and they're notifying BOOGERS whose information was accessed.

Make a new law, if you get hacked, you have to pay the person whos data you lost $100,000.

Yeah, that will work really well with the government. Hey, we got hacked 100 times last year. In totally unrelated news, income taxes are going up and we just hired 1,000 new IRS employees because, obviously, those people need more help.

Everyone sue the IRS! That'll teach them! Oh wait, you can't. Tough luck, buddy. Just keep trusting your government though-- because you really have no choice.

Indeed, although I can see why most american would fear this business model, because it sounds oh-so-much like some weird form of communism applied to automotive.

In no way does "gravitating with their dollars" sound like communism. Quite the opposite.